§ 12-15-10 Confidential nature offinancial statement. The public defender, his or her assistants, and every employee of his or heroffice is expressly prohibited from divulging to any individual not officiallyconnected with his or her office any information obtained by the publicdefender, his or her assistants, or any employee of that office in the regularcourse of their duty or from any financial statement submitted under §12-15-9 or from the records and reports of their investigation, or from thepermanent records of that office, which would reveal any of the informationrelative to the financial status or any person submitting a financialstatement. Every request for information directed to the public defender shallbe denied if the request would necessitate that individual to divulge anyinformation which is declared in this section to be held confidential by thepublic defender; provided, the public defender is authorized to divulge theinformation confidentially held by that office to the court referring adefendant in a criminal case to the public defender's office.